JEFFERSON CITY • It's no surprise that Roy Blunt and Robin Carnahan spend a lot of time on the campaign trail talking about jobs.

The two candidates for U.S. Senate understand that unemployment has been above 9 percent since May 2009. Democrats and Republicans alike predict there is not much relief in sight.

When the Post-Dispatch asked Missouri voters in July what their top issues were, jobs was No. 1 by an overwhelming margin. More than 60 percent of those interviewed by Mason/Dixon Polling & Research said they were worried about jobs and the economy.

So what do Carnahan, a Democrat, and Blunt, a Republican, intend to do about it?

Provide more jobs, of course.

But how the two candidates seek to accomplish that monumental task offers an area of contrast.

While Blunt and Carnahan agree on some things — offering tax incentives to businesses and extending the Bush era tax cuts — they differ when it comes to the government's role in generating jobs.

Carnahan embraces protecting the jobs of teachers, firefighters and police officers by propping up state budgets with federal funding.

Blunt refers to those kind of policies as "job-killing" and suggests that increasing the federal deficit has led to uncertainty in the business world, reducing the creation of jobs in the private sector. Much of his campaign platform is about undoing the economic policies of President Barack Obama.

So which message will resonate with voters come Nov. 2?

'uncertainty'

Larry Purdom, 67, a dairy farmer from Purdy in southwestern Missouri, outlined Blunt's campaign arguments on jobs in two sentences.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time, it's not what we want government to do for us," said the president of the Missouri Dairy Association at an event backing Blunt. "It's what we don't want government to do to us."

Purdom ticked off the policy proposals of the Obama administration that he says worry Missouri farmers.

"Cap and trade is going to affect everything we buy," he said of the energy proposal that would seek to reduce carbon emissions, particularly from coal-fired power plants, which are prevalent in Missouri.

"Even the health bill is going to put some pressure on us," Purdom said, adding that many dairy farmers can't afford health insurance for their workers. "We don't make enough money to take care of our own."

In many ways, Blunt's jobs plan is less focused on generating jobs than it is about stopping policies of the current administration, in part by cutting federal spending.

To that end, he proposes:

• Extending the tax cuts enacted under then-President George W. Bush.

• Repealing the health care reform bill passed by Congress in March.

• Fighting against an energy policy that is focused on reducing carbon emissions.

• Repealing Wall Street regulations recently passed by Congress that Blunt says make it more difficult for businesses to obtain credit.

A common thread in Blunt's arguments is that Obama's policies produce "uncertainty" in the marketplace.

Market uncertainty is one of the economy's most serious problems, says Donald Marron, director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

"There is this pall of uncertainty" over the economy, Marron said in a speech Aug. 5 to the National Press Club in Washington. But part of that uncertainty, Marron said, comes from the political bickering over tax policies.

Some of the uncertainty is related to how new policies, particularly the health care and Wall Street regulation laws, will be implemented. And much of it, Marron said, involves speculation over what will happen with the Bush tax cuts.

On this issue, Carnahan and Blunt agree — though it wasn't always that way.

tax cut extension

Early in the campaign, Carnahan took Obama's position on the Bush tax cuts — that the middle class cuts made by Congress 10 years ago should be extended, but those cuts on the nation's wealthiest citizens, about the top 1 percent in earners, should expire.

But earlier this month, on the same day that Democrats arrived in Missouri for summer meetings in which they blamed Bush's tax policy for much of what ails the economy, Carnahan changed her position. She now supports extending all the tax cuts.

"Now is not the time to raise taxes," she said, pointing out that the economy hasn't gotten better in the past six months.

The issue puts a bit of a dent in the narratives of both candidates.

For Blunt, who opposed last year's stimulus funding and has argued that it hasn't helped the economy, supporting the tax cuts conflicts with his suggestion that reducing the deficit will generate jobs. The Tax Policy Center says that extending the Bush tax cuts to the nation's richest taxpayers will add $680 billion to the deficit over the next decade.

And for Carnahan, who like most Democrats blames the nation's economic woes on the policies of Republicans when they were in power, her stance suggests she now supports one of the cornerstones of Republican philosophy.

Despite her concern over the economy, Carnahan says the stimulus has been effective. A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office backs her up, indicating that at least 2 million full-time jobs were generated by the stimulus spending.

But the economy still struggles.So whose fault is it? Carnahan blames Bush and Blunt.

Blunt blames Obama's stimulus spending and other policies, even though he supported the Bush bailout of Wall Street that followed a similar philosophy: using massive federal spending to keep the economy from collapsing.

federal fundS

While both Blunt and Carnahan have backed some government spending related to the economy — and criticized other forms of it — that is the area where there appears to be the biggest contrast.

Earlier this month, Blunt missed a vote that made about $26 billion in emergency funding available for states to help balance their budgets. The money was pitched by Democrats as a way to save jobs for teachers, firefighters and police officers, though in Missouri, legislative leaders had already agreed to save the money for next year's budget.

Carnahan blasted Blunt for missing the vote.

"Today's vote was about supporting those who dedicate their lives to keeping us safe and educating our kids," she said.

The difference is a clear one: Carnahan has supported federal spending to protect government jobs — many of them union jobs. Blunt has not.

When it comes to the government's role in providing private sector jobs, however, it's difficult to find much substantive difference between the two Senate candidates' positions.

Both candidates talk about providing incentives and tax cuts to help small businesses. This is the part of Carnahan's jobs' plan that gets most specific. She says she supports:

• Payroll tax breaks for small businesses.

• Innovation tax credits for start-up businesses.

• Other incentives to help small businesses grow.

Carnahan criticized Blunt for opposing a bill earlier this year that was supported by Republican Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, whom the two candidates seek to replace. The bill included tax breaks for small businesses such as the ones Carnahan supports. Blunt called it too expensive.

Carnahan said she wanted to "reshuffle" the various subsidies the government now gives to oil companies and use that money for other business incentives. She has hammered Blunt on his status as one of the top recipients of campaign donations from lobbyists and executives connected to the oil industry, sometimes brushing off questions about the fact that she, too, has received donations from the industry.

Blunt, on the other hand, defends the oil subsidies he has voted for in the past.

"I favor an all-of-the-above energy policy," Blunt said.

In other words, he wants to see government incentives go to oil companies, ethanol plants, wind farms, solar and other "homegrown" energy sources.

Carnahan, too, supports such incentives — as long as they don't go to "big oil." And while she favors putting a price on carbon to reduce global warming, Carnahan insists she would not support an energy policy that would hurt Missouri consumers.

For many of those voters, the decision will come down to who is to blame for the nation's economic woes.

Purdom, the farmer from Purdy, blames Obama, even though he admits most of the policies he's concerned about have yet to be implemented.

But for Barbara Scott, 76, a retired teacher from Town and Country, it's Bush's fault.

"People have short memories," said Scott, who said she planned to vote for Carnahan. "They forget who started this economic downturn. If you talk to my neighbors who are employed and have good jobs, they are happy. I don't think anybody realizes how bad it really is until they lose their job."